What's fair for excess cleaning fees for bedding and bath products?

[Daniel444]

I've recently had 2 bad experiences with guests and I was really debating what constitutes as cleaning and damage fees. To me, regular cleaning is like vacuuming, laundering the sheets and bathroom products, and dusting things off.

I've had a couple who left the apartment in a small mess and tried to hide the soda spill on and beneath the couch. There was stickly residue that wasn't cleaned up. They were also using some imtimate products in bed that permanently stained my sheets and my mattress protector. There were multiple splotches of stains and I tried washing a few times but basically had to toss them.

I've had another couple that left the apartment smelling like a high school boys' locker room. I basically had to wash everything, even the towels and things that they didn't use. I had to either dry clean the down comforter or trash it, and the pillows smell so absolutely disgusting that I just tossed them. It looked like they attempted to tidy things up before they left though.

I live in NYC and this is my own place that I rent out when I take extended vacations. I don't have space to keep sets of cheap bedding and pillows with my own sets of nice bedding. My question is, it be fair to charge the $150 for the sheets and mattress protector and $300 for dry cleaning for that comforter, laundering everything, and new pillows?

Also, how do you guys rotate the bedding and bathroom products when renting your own homes out?

[Linda108]

@Daniel444  Unless you can prove that a particular guest caused the damage, you must absorb the damage costs.  You are running a business in which there will be some losses, but you need to figure that into your nightly rate.  "Extra cleaning" is usually related to extra costs related to cleaning, not extra effort.  For example if you have to have the mattress steam cleaned, not if you have sticky residue.

As to the stains on bedding, you are double using your personal sheets.  Not good.  You are in the hospitality industry and guests are going to stain bedding with various bodily fluids, oils, etc.  You need to have linens that are less expensive.  I understand that storage space is at a premium.  If you have a vacuum, buy a couple of large zip vacuum bags and put guest linens in it.   Doesn't take up much space.

[Rachel369]

We took out all expensive bedding and replaced everything with cheap linen, towels etc. We also found out how much a cleaning company would normally charge for our type of home. That is what we put as a cleaning fee. We change linen and towels every time a guest leaves.